Social Dialogue
The Social Dialogue between EuroCommerce and UNI-Europa Commerce has functioned continuously since 1983 and was officially recognised by the European Commission in 1990. In 1993, EuroCommerce and Euro-Fiet (now UNI-Europa) officially recognised each other as social partners within the meaning of Articles 3 and 4 of the Agreement on Social Policy. On 30 November 1998, following the reorganisation of the European social dialogue, the social partners agreed to establish a sectoral social dialogue committee.
The Social Partners for Commerce approach employment and labour related issues through a large range of instruments such as statements, opinions, guidelines, framework agreements or concrete projects (vocational training material, studies and reports).
The output of the European Social Dialogue for Commerce has been gathered under the following categories:
Joint projects:
Training:
In June 1988, a training project was launched related to electronic commerce and other technological innovations. It was successfully finalised.
Employment:
In the first months of 1997, a research project on employment developments commissioned by the social partners was started. At the annual meeting in Brussels in June 1997, the social partners stressed that employment would remain the main issue for social dialogue and an agreement was made to organise a seminar on electronic commerce, an issue that from that moment on also remained high on the agenda. In June 1998, a project supported by the Commission was launched on electronic commerce, with the aim of defining changes in job profiles brought by techological developments. These job profiles could then be used for adapting vocational training.
In June 1999, they finalised the report on initiatives to combat Child labour in European Commerce.
In April 2000, a conference took place in Lisbon on employment in the Commerce sector. This Conference followed the one organised in Brussels in 1998 and results from article 3.3 of EuroCommerce/Euro-Fiet joint agreement on the establishement of a sectoral social dialogue Committee.
In Barcelona, March 2002, in the presence of the European Commission, the European Social partners for Commerce signed voluntary guidelines on age diversity at work. Accepting the challenge of the demographic changes foreseen in the forthcoming years, they advocate an "age neutral" approach to employment relations, in order to enable older workers to stay longer in active working life.
Enlargement of the EU:
An issue on which the social partners in commerce have been active, but no joint statements were concluded is the enlargement of the European Union. The Social Partners agreed to convene a series of meetings in the countries applying for membership of the EU, the objective being to familiarise the social partners with the results of the European Social Dialogue. The idea behind these meetings is that there should be structures for Social Dialogue as well as well functioning dialogue in the candidate countries.
The first Round Table meeting on the Social Dialogue was held in Estonia in May 1998, in co-operation with TAIEX, chaired by a representative of DG Employment, which was created in response to a proposal in the White Paper on the preparation of the associated countries of central and eastern Europe for integration into the union`s internal market. Since this was a success, successive Round Table meetings were held in Hungary (October 1998), Czech Republic (May 1999), Poland (July 1999), Lithuania and Slovakia (2000), Latvia (June 2002) and Slovenia (September 2002).
A seminar, covering the Social Dialogue and internal market issues was solely targeted at the Czech Employers` Federation and took place in Prague in September 2003, with the financial support of TAIEX.
See also on the web
- European Social Dialogue